April 29, 2012

The Power of Henry Chesbrough

Earlier today, Nathan Mattise posted an article on the celebrations at PARC marking the 10th anniversary of its (quasi) spinoff.

Veteran OI researchers know that OI started at PARC, with Henry Chesbrough’s research on Xerox PARC that led to Chesbrough & Rosenbloom (2002) and then his original Open Innovation book. And apparently Chesbrough gave the opening presentation Thursday afternoon at the event entitled “The Power of 10,” celebrating open innovation.

But what really caught my eye was the picture of the live illustration that Heather Willems did for the event. (Live illustrating is a local fad in the Valley, which I find interesting but less concrete than live blogging.)

In the Ars picture, the signboard starts with “The Power of 10” in the stylized PARC design for the event. But at first glance, the signboard says “The Power of Henry Chesbrough.”

I’ve made a few contributions to OI, open source and standards research, but nothing to earn a slogan with my name in it. I’m not sure how (or if) I’m going to get there, but then I don’t think Henry necessarily anticipated this outcome when he started a decade ago.